Captain Hogan Brown 6/12 Fishing Report: Feather River and the Lower Sacramento

I have been spending most of my time on the Feather and Lower Sac chasing river stripers these last few weeks. We have seen good numbers of stripers to the boat as the fish spread out and settle into their summer haunts and work their daily migrations. Most fish are coming on fast to medium sink fly lines and standard striper flies. Finding the color, size and swim pattern the fish want each has been the key.

 

Clarity varies greatly up and down the river as do water temps. Flows remain very low for this time of year. Releases at Keswick are sitting at 9000cfs but flows lower in the river are highly dependent on how much irrigation water is taken out and how much snowmelt from the tributaries is dumping in. This makes the flows vary on a daily basis. Clarity can vary from mile to mile based on banks falling in and channel work being done around a few of the irrigation projects that dump sediment and dirt into the river. With the winter that we had, flows should come up eventually. That said, current flows are not consistent with the quality of winter that we had, and it is leaving a lot of people scratching their heads.

 

Despite the inconsistency, summer fishing is off to a great start with a few fish over 30lbs to the boat and plenty of good 5-10lb fish around. There are still some great days available in July and August to get out this summer so get on the books and come out and striper fish.

 

Dates available as of now:

July 2, 3, 5, 18, 25, 26, 29, 31

August 1, 2, 7, 8